


something so precious about this

by quixotix



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Living Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:27:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22180279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixotix/pseuds/quixotix
Summary: Jean Havoc isn't sure what it is he's doing with Roy Mustang and at this point he's too afraid to ask.
Relationships: Jean Havoc/Roy Mustang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 126





	something so precious about this

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ganymeme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ganymeme/gifts).



> Secret Santa present for the lovely Jay! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and sincerely hope you enjoy the fic. <3 <3

Living with Roy Mustang was not a reality Jean Havoc had ever thought to prepare himself for. But then, neither was watching a teenage boy fight God in the parking lot of a military complex, so Jean's less than stellar skill with clairvoyance evidently wasn't changing anytime soon.

It was an unexpected set up, all things considered. Jean was hesitant to call it 'domestic', but one can only share a house with another person for so long before things like splitting the chores, grocery shopping together, and always making sure there's coffee ready how they like when you're the first up in the morning, starts to come naturally. His insertion into the living space of the other man had been effortless, and Jean was strangely pleased by the thought of how well they functioned both with and around each other, like their own little team.

Oh, and there's also the sex. That's another kind of important part. 

Waking up before Roy is a far more regular occurrence than anticipated, but Jean certainly isn't complaining. Having a bundle of sleep-warm blankets pressed against his side, gently snoring away, certainly made the early hours more than worth it. He lies there for a moment with his nose pressed to soft hair, before awkwardly wriggling out from underneath his bed-mate and making his way downstairs for his required morning caffeine dose.

It's as he's stood at the counter waiting for the water to boil that the thoughts start creeping back into his head again. Stupid, irritating little thoughts about what exactly it is he and Roy are doing here. They've never put a label on it, and Jean was normally content to tell himself that they didn't need to, but at the wee hours of the morning when all he had to focus on was the sounds of the house, it's hard to keep from spiralling. 

Were they a couple? Dating? Partners? Ex-Coworkers Who Lived Together, Shared a Bed and Occasionally Indulged in Fantastic Sex was far too much of a mouthful. 

Jean sighs and sits himself down at the little kitchen table, piled with varying magazines and books and scribbled notes from Roy. He puffs out a laugh a crude doodle of Black Hayate, leaning his head on his hand as he sips his coffee. A glance at the calender tells him it's already been almost one year since he moved in, and he wonders where the time went. 

______

He'd been scrubbing down the countertop, bored out of his mind, when Mustang stepped into the store. They stared at each other for a long moment.

"Hello," Mustang said. 

Jean blinked again, clearing his throat in the hopes it would help his brain catch up with the fact that yes, that was in fact Roy Mustang stood in the doorway of his family's shop, and not several miles away in Central City like he should be. 

"Hey, sir," he said dazedly, ignoring the face Roy made at the honorific. "Not that I'm not delighted to see you, but uh. What brings you here?"

Mustang dropped his eyes to the floor, then to Jean again, lifted his hands to take his coat off then decided against it. It was strange seeing him look so uncomfortable, and Jean wasn't enough of a bastard to be able to tolerate the near-painful silence anymore than he had to. 

"C'mon into the back, I can get you a drink," he said, waving to the door behind the counter. "Ma's not home right now."

Roy started to protest, but Jean was already heading through into the little kitchenette at the back of the store. Roy eventually followed, his coat now draped over his arm. He stood stiffly in the door for a moment before giving in and lowering himself onto one of the plush couches in the corner of the room, giving Jean a small smile when the blond passed him a glass of lemonade.

"Not like you to just drop in like this, chief. And from so far away. Should you even be travelling with your eyes still healing up?" Jean asked, lighting a cigarette. Roy made another face, his nose scrunching up. Cute.

"I thought you quit?"

"I quit quitting."

"Are you allowed smoke in here?"

"It's my shop."

"It's your mother's shop."

"Which one of us is it that knows where the bathroom is, Mustang?"

Roy laughed, sharp and sudden, and Jean felt something warm settle in his chest. It has never gone unnoticed to him just how gorgeous the man really was.

Roy drummed his fingers on his glass.

"I, um…" he stuttered. Roy Mustang, stuttering. Truly a day of surprises. "I understand you're coming back to Central soon?" 

Jean paused, then blew the smoke out of his mouth slowly. 

"Yeah, now that I'm not using the chair anymore, I got referred to a new physical therapist. " A moments silence as Jean rapped his fingers on the table. "Why?"

Another long pause between them. The novelty of seeing Mustang so off his usual groove was getting old very quickly.

"I was wondering if you've found a place to stay."

Jean froze, then blond threw his head back with a tired groan, rubbing at his face. 

"God, you would show up just to nag me. No, I haven't, and trust me I've heard enough about it from ma. I'll work something out, things are just a little fucked right now. Kinda hard to find places to stay when half the city got totalled."

He takes small triumph in watching Mustang fight the inane urge to correct his math, but doesn't get to relish it long. 

"I came to offer to let you stay with me."

The longest silence yet stretches between them. Surely this is some kind of record. Jean blinks once, then several times in rapid succession, then squints.

"Stay... with you?"

Mustang goes pink, and Jean thinks _What the fuck?_

"It's just an easy option," the smaller man shrugs, "and it'll save you money. And like you said, it's going to be near impossible to find somewhere to rent in the city while everyone's getting back on their-" 

He stops talking very suddenly, mouth hanging open for a beat, then snapping shut, and Jean can't fight the laughter that rises in him. Roy's flush darkens, and he lowers his eyes to his drink.

"I just wanted to put forward the offer. I figured it would make things easier for you, and I have more than enough space, so it wouldn't be an inconvenience. You're under no obligation to accept, but my door is always open."

Roy just looks at him beguilingly, and Jean eyes him. He looks Mustang up and down, out of his uniform and out of his element, and thinks it over. It would be much less work than having to find somewhere to stay the old-fashioned way, not to mention it'd save him a pretty penny. For all his quirks, Mustang didn't seem like the type who'd be very difficult to live with. Jean drums the fingers of his free hand on the wheel of his chair, and puts his cigarette out in the little dish. 

"Fuck it, why not? But you'd better believe you're gonna be helping with unpacking."

Roy beams at him.

______

He jumps when the shower suddenly starts up, head slipping off his hand with a curse. So Roy was finally up. 

Jean got up and went to make more coffee, knowing Roy wouldn't be functional until he'd poured at least two cups into him. He pulls one of the mint green mugs he knows Roy likes from the cupboard, where they're nestled among Jean's frankly ridiculously large collection of novelty mugs, and set about starting breakfast as the shower rattled on above him.

______

It had taken an embarrassingly short amount of time to move all his stuff in, but Roy said nothing about it. He'd helped Jean carry and unpack and fold and put away his things in the guest room, and then clapped his hands together delightedly, which was adorable, and wandered off to find a take out menu to order them dinner. And with that, Jean Havoc was officially living with Roy Mustang. 

Jean had been worried they'd clash. They had never been the most like-minded men, and God knew sharing one living quarters could have only exacerbated that. But instead, they'd fitted themselves nicely around one another, and quickly fell into regular routines. Roy went back to work, because he wasn't capable of sitting still for very long with so much to do after the Promised Day, and Jean was usually left alone in the house for hours to entertain himself. 

But in the evenings, when Roy came home and had changed into more comfortable clothes, they'd mill around the kitchen together, making an approximation of a healthy dinner, before settling in the living room to eat. They usually spent most of the evening there, sometimes talking, sometimes listening to the radio, sometimes sitting in complete silence. Roy would read and Jean would smoke and Roy would pretend Jean wasn't smoking in the house. 

It was uncanny how naturally it came, how seamlessly they seemed the snap together. Hell, living with his parents hadn't been this easy, but something about this, something about Roy Mustang, just seemed right in a way he wasn't able to put words to. The house, the evenings spent together idling the time away, seemed to occur in an almost automatic way, one that Jean had come to cherish.

This was also, coincidentally, how the sex started. 

They had been sat in their usual spots at either end of the couch, Roy's socked feet in Jean's lap as he prodded at Jean's stomach with them, because he was a menace. Jean had grabbed him by the ankles and stood, trying to drag the dark haired man off the couch, and Roy yelped his indignance. It was something about the site of him, pale skin flushed with laughter and hair strewn about the place. His loose t-shirt had ridden up to reveal a maddeningly small view of a soft stomach and a trail of dark hair leading to the waistband of his trousers, and Jean had looked down at him and ached. 

There had been a flurry of frantic movement as the blond pressed his lips to Roy's, hands roaming up his shirt to feel warm skin, before moving down over his hips, around Roy's thighs and up to his ass and squeezing, and Christ, the noise Roy made-

They had woken up tucked into Roy's bed, and stared at each other until they both went red in the face and jumped up to get dressed.

And then it happened again two nights later. And then again. And again, and again, until it became as regular as any of their other routines. Jean couldn't pinpoint when it was they'd started just going straight to the bed together, couldn't pinpoint when it stopped being just for sex. He was almost afraid thinking about it for too would mess it up. 

So he said nothing, and it kept up, the same as anything else. The same as their mornings in the kitchens grumbling over breakfast, as their occasional rushed phone call when Roy managed to snag the time during lunch, as their evenings just sitting and being together. And it was good. More than, even. It was perfect.

And then one day Roy didn't come home. 

He'd been out of sorts leaving that morning, and he hasn't called at all. And then he was an hour late coming home. Then two. Then four. 

He would have called if something came up. Jean knew he would. Something was wrong.

He called the office, but the lieutenant on the other end of the phone (a woman who's voice and name Jean didn't recognise and, goodness, wasn't that discombobulating) told him the general had left at the end of his day as always. She told him nothing had been out of the ordinary, though Mustang had seemed a little quiet, but that was where her ability to help ended.

So Jean had hopped in the car and started driving around, scanning the streets like a hawk, trying to spot Roy in the dark. It had taken the better part of the night, but he eventually found him huddled up in a covered bus stop, looking impossibly small all by himself even in the imposing military uniform. Jean suddenly found himself inexplicably, incredibly pissed.

"What the hell are you doing out here? You do know I had expected you home, like, 5 hours ago? I even made a dinner!"

Roy said nothing.

"Mustang? Are you even listening?"

Still nothing.

"Roy, come on-" Jean huffed, taking Roy by the shoulder, only to immediately draw back when the dark haired man startled. His eyes were puffy, rimmed with red. Jean watched as he started wringing his hands. 

"Jean, I- sorry, I'm sorry, I just. This is happens, it just happens sometimes. I'm really sorry."

The taller of the two looked at him for moment, before gently taking him by the hands to pull his twisted fingers apart. When that was dealt with, he gently cupped his hand at Roy's cheek, running his thumb over his cheekbone. 

"Come on," Jean said, in as soothing a voice he could. "Let's go home."

When they made it home, Jean had immediately set about packing up the dinner and switching off all the downstairs lights, ignoring Roy's protests that he could take care of himself. Once they reached the bedroom, he rolled back the bedcovers as Roy undressed, and settled in. Jean sat at the edge of the bed and leaned over him, kissing his forehead, waiting for any explanation Roy might decide to give.

Roy eventually explained that this was just something that happened to him, just one of the ways his own brain could be an obstacle sometimes, and that it wasn't going to go away, not anytime soon. Jean had shushed him when he tried to apologise again. 

"What should I do the next time it happens?"

Roy hadn't seemed to pick up on it at the time and had soon drifted off. But later, when he was tucked in bed, staring wide awake up at the ceiling, Jean realised just how much those words really implied.

______

The kitchen door swung open and in shuffled Roy. His hair was damp, and he was wearing Jean's shirt. He gave a cavernous yawn, then beelined for the coffee. Jean, who'd just been setting breakfast down on the table, heard the sound of a cabinet opening followed by the rattling of a small, plastic bottle.

"I don't think you're supposed to take your meds with coffee, hon," he said warmly, for what wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last time.

"Well, I think you can get fucked, hon," Roy shot back, voice sunshiny, and Jean cackled. 

He was about to go in search of cutlery, when he felt warm finger tips brush the back of his neck and rest there, as knives and forks clattered to the tabletop. Jean turned to find Roy flopping gracelessly into the chair next to him, smiling up at Jean in a way that he was starting to realise was only for him.

"Good morning," Roy hummed. Jean leaned down and kissed his nose, grinning at the tired giggle it earned him.

So, they didn't have a label. They were fine.

They didn't need one.


End file.
